I have some weird electrical issues on my 1998 Accord 5speed. It happens once a week, maybe every 200 km. I would be driving along and for a split second I am loosing power to the gauges, radio and not sure what else (car slows down as if the brakes were applied), then back to normal for a few days.

No starting issues, drives very well, idles fine. I spoke to the dealer and he said there maybe some residual current issues, he wanted me to try jumping the + and - cables to neutralize eveything. I just want to make sure that would be ok. My battery was from 2005, so I decided to change it and did. Problem didn't go away. No CELs thrown. I don't think it is a bad ground, because I would assume it would do it more often, but maybe not. My ignition switch was changed about 8 years ago with the recall. My spark plug wires are original, cap/rotor/plugs all new. Could it be wires?

thanks for any ideas..

 

What are you asking exactly? Your title deserves an answer of "Hell no!" and "WTF are you thinking?"

 

Your ignition switch is going bad. Whomever you spoke to is an idiot. If My 1991 Accord had this problem. My 1998 Odyssey has a recall for this issue. Most likely your Accord also has a recall.

You can REMOVE the battery and short the positive and negative cables to drain the capacitors in the air bag module, ECU, Etc. This is so you can service the airbag, or steering column without risk of accidental deployment. Or a SRS "airbag service light".

 

Son, it's never a good idea to short out a battery that powerful. ESPECIALLY while it's sitting in your car. Hydrogen gas fumes that may be near the battery (has to do with how batteries work) can be ignited by a spark. BOOOOOOM!!! Next thing you know, you wake up in the morgue.

And don't think the battery won't spark because you may have never actually seen it. I dropped a new alternator in my buddy's Escort a few months back late at night. The battery, despite being unhooked during the time the car wasn't in use, was fatally depleted (I didn't realize it at the time). I had a friend hook his 400 ci truck to my buddy's to jump start it, but he connected the cables to both terminals of both batteries (a big no no) when doing it correctly wasn't working. We were hoping that directly connecting both batteries would bump the voltage a little bit. Me, being stupid, cranked the engine, and sparks flew like the 4th of July, no joke my boy. Luckily, nobody died a terrible death, possibly due to it being windy.

Moral of the story is don't try something dangerous because you could die.... coming from someone who did 120 at 1 am in a light drizzle

 

Sorry guys, my title was bad, have changed it to include (without battery) as that's what i meant.

Anyway, my concern was if I remove the cables from the battery and touch them, some of the capacitors could still have current and whether this could damage the ECU etc.. But I will assume this can be done and will not harm any electrical components. Thanks also for the tip about the ignition switch. I was thinking that as well and maybe I will change it myself and see if it works. (I did see a detailed howto on this).

 

agree^^

when i saw this title i was like waaaahhhhh

 

As long as neither of the cable is hooked up to the battery, its perfectly OK...

 

By far, the funniest thing I've heard today

 

Touching the batt. cables together, [without a batt.] is not a problem, as mentioned, it is done to drain all capacitors in the electrical system, we do it at our shop at least once a day.

Without more info it would be hard to know what is wrong, I have to agree it sounds like an ign. switch problem, [a connection problem] more so, if you loose only ign. powers, [engine, gauges, radio, wipers, blower motor] things like head lights and horn still work.

If all power is lost, it is most likely a grounding issue, [common to all electrical].

To elliminate grounding being the issue, start by redoing, [not just eyeballing or assuming] the main grounds, that's batt. post and cable clamp, batt. to chassis ground and chassis to engine ground, [disconnect/clean/reconnect], even if they are not your problem, it can't hurt to redo the main grounds on a 15 year old car.

The other possibility, if loosing all power, is a defective or loose main fuse.

Intermittent problems are called intermittent because they are, there is no "standard" timeline, once or twice a month or 10 times a day is still intermittent, making an assumption because of frequency will... well you know what they say about assuming. 94

 

Sounds like a switch problem (bad) or a loose connection somewhere.